Michael McGarity - Serpent Gate

He stood on the loading dock and watched the trucks start off on the long haul to Chicago. His breath cut a ribbon through the frigid air of early morning. It had taken all night to put the shipment together.

Moving nearly a half ton of cocaine and an equal amount of smack was no easy proposition. It had to be hidden in specially constructed crates and loaded precisely in the trucks to avoid raising suspicion.

Bucky turned off the overhead lights and walked to the back of the crating room to the large tool closet.

The drivers had been the last employees to leave, and the building was empty. He flipped on the closet light and swung open a floor-to-ceiling shelf that led to a secret basement. Six wetbacks supplied by De Leon had built the hidden passageway and fashioned a cellar under the crawl space. All the excavation work had been done at night; dirt had been hauled up in buckets by hand, loaded into trucks, and carted away before daybreak.

Bucky walked down the stairs and checked his inventory.

He'd deliberately held back some product so he could fill two upcoming shipments, one for Colorado and one for Kansas. He saw no reason not to make the deliveries just because De Leon wanted to bolster the Chicago market. The drugs would be gone within a couple of days, and because the well would be dry for a while, Bucky planned to bump up the price of a kilo and skim the difference, with no one the wiser.

He turned off the light, locked up, went to his office, and logged on at the computer. Except for Kansas and Colorado, it was time to let the network know that the pipeline would be shut down until further notice. gilbert martinbz got to work early and found a memorandum tacked to the office door. The memo, signed by the vehicle maintenance supervisor, directed Gilbert to produce his unit for servicing immediately. It cited departmental policy, and noted that failure to comply could result in disciplinary action.

It was the second memo Gilbert had received in a week, and while he didn't expect to be reprimanded, the car badly needed a tune-up. He unlocked the office, dumped his briefcase on the desk, and walked down the hall to a back suite that looked out on the maintenance building.

The overhead doors were open and the lights were on. Maybe if he got the unit in immediately, he could have it back in a couple of hours.

He drove to the shop, parked by an open bay, found the vehicle supervisor in his office, dropped the car keys on the desk, and asked when he could pick up the unit.

"End of the day," the man said gruffly.

"I'm gonna have to fit you in where I can."

"I need another car," Gilbert said.

"Don't have one," the man replied.

"You'll have to borrow from somebody who isn't using their vehicle, or catch rides with one of the uniforms."

"That won't work," Gilbert said.

The man shrugged.

"You caused the problem, Sergeant, not me. I had you scheduled for maintenance last week. Next time, get your car in when you're supposed to and I'll have a leaner for you."

Back in his office, Gilbert discovered two manila envelopes on the seat of his desk chair containing information on Rancho Caballo sent over by the Environment Department and the Santa Fe county clerk.

He thumbed through the paperwork. One set was compliance documents for the effluent discharge and gray water system at me clubhouse. He set it aside.

The Santa Fe county clerk's packet contained release of mortgage documents, warranty deeds, and copies of the mortgages held on Rancho Caballo. Gilbert read the material carefully. Twelve liens against Rancho Caballo had been released by a company called Matador Properties, based in Santa Pc. The total amount paid off to Matador exceeded a hundred million dollars. Matador held another hundred million in paper against the corporation.

Gilbert checked the due dates on the release documents.

Each were ten-year notes that had been paid off way ahead of schedule.

Gilbert wasn't a financial expert, but paying off so much debt so quickly seemed unusual to him, especially for a real estate project with land and houses still unsold. He went through the forms again, this time scanning the signature blocks. Sherman Cobb, Roger Springer, and Bucky Watson had signed off on each of them, Cobb for Rancho Caballo, Springer as corporate counsel, and Watson for Matador Properties.

It's such a small world, Gilbert thought, as he heard footsteps in the hallway. He looked up, expecting to see Chief Kerney appear in the doorway, ready to ream him out for his late-night visit to Roger Springer. He relaxed when the footsteps receded.

Gilbert leafed through the papers again. Matador Properties was taking a hard hit on interest earnings because of the accelerated payback on the notes. And while everything appeared legal, he wondered why Watson would keep financing a project that yielded such low returns. He needed some expert advice.

The official workday had begun, which meant that Joe Valdez should be in his office. Valdez, a senior investigator and a certified public accountant, specialized in white-collar and corporate crime. Gilbert picked up the paperwork and went looking for Valdez. He found him anchored behind his desk, reading glasses perched on his wide nose, punching the keys of a desk calculator.

Valdez had a full chin and big ears with thick lobes.

He wore his hair short with no part. He looked more like a prizefighter than a cop or a CPA.

"Hey, Sergeant," Joe said as Gilbert walked in.

"What's up?"

"Doing the monthly family budget?" Gilbert asked.

"There is no family budget," Joe grumbled, pushing the calculator aside.

"A budget assumes that I can actually plan for expenditures. That's impossible to do with two teenage daughters in high school."

"Marry them off," Gilbert suggested, sliding into a chair.

"Too young," Valdez replied with a shake of his head.

"Plus, they both want to go to college before they get married. As it is, I'm running a tax service out of the house in my spare time, trying to put some money aside for tuition. It costs a bundle to send kids to college.

Now that the wife is working, we just might be able to swing it."

"The rewards of police work come from the satisfaction of the job, not money."

"Don't give me that crap."

"You'll have both girls in college at the same time?"

"One right after the other, starting in two years."

"I'm looking forward to the same experience with my girls later down the line."

"You'll love it," Joe predicted sourly.

"What have you got?"

"Take a look at these and tell me what you think."

Gilbert handed Valdez the documents and waited for a reaction.

"I don't like what I'm seeing," Valdez finally said, flipping back and forth from document to document.

"These kind of real estate development projects usually attract more than one financing source, especially at this level. Two hundred million is a hell of a lot of money for one company to invest in this state, unless it's a banking institution."

"What about the accelerated loan payoffs?"

"That, too," Joe replied. He rubbed the bald spot on the back of his head.

"There's a lot of cash moving back and forth here over a short period of time."

"Between the same group of people."

"Exactly. I'd be looking hard at Matador Properties, if I were you.

Scope out the assets of the corporation."

"That's the place to start?"

Joe nodded.

"You bet. Track down the source of that money. What kind of income is generating that level of investment capital? If it looks clean, then jump over to Rancho Caballo. The corporate earnings to debt ratio might prove interesting, once you know what amounts from the loan proceeds were actually plowed into the development."